There has been a lot of demands on high speed data write-in into a semiconductor memory, by a single write-in command. Possible applications include allowing a semiconductor memory to be quickly written with and then holding the final state of memory when the memory is powered off; and reducing the duration of time necessary for write-in of adjustment data, ID data and so forth when the semiconductor memories are shipped. In these applications, data write-in is conducted by a single command, wherein the data having the same address will not be re-written throughout the period.
In the conventional semiconductor memories, any high speed data write-in needed a system configuration in which the data are once written in a high speed memory such as SRAM, and then transferred to a flash memory or the like (for example, see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-15954, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 11-306073, and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 4-33029.